Mr. Speaker, it is with a great deal of pleasure that I take part in my very first budget debate since having been elected by the voters in Nanaimo—Cowichan this past spring.
One might have hoped that it would be under much better circumstances. However, having seen what the finance minister has brought down, I can only draw one conclusion. Canadian taxpayers have been robbed of debt and tax relief and the Liberals are going on a spending spree once again. It is a shame. In fact the budget is not just a shame. It is a sham.
I could not believe my ears when the finance minister stood in the House to declare that in effect the deficit battle had been won by his government. I know they go to great pains to disclaim that but that was said.
Nothing could have been further from the truth. It is incumbent upon us as opposition members of Parliament to keep pointing out that the government was able to hopefully balance that budget only on the backs of working men and women. They are the ones who have been paying an extra $33 billion in taxes since the Liberal government took office in 1993.
What is the reward for the sacrifices Canadians have made? What are taxpayers getting now that the books are supposedly balanced and the government expects to start running surpluses? One short word, nothing. What they should be getting is broad based meaningful tax relief. They deserve nothing less. They are telling me as their representative when I go back to the riding that they are disappointed in the budget because they did not got that relief.
In 1993 Canadian taxpayers paid $107 billion in income tax. This year we will pay close to $140 billion in taxes to fund the big red tax and spend Liberal machine. The chequebooks are out again.
In order to be in a situation where the government could even contemplate a balanced budget, let alone a surplus, program spending for 1998-99 came in at about $103.5 billion. Just as taxpayers have eliminated this deficit the government is resorting to the same tax and spend policies that got us into this mess in the first place.
This year the Liberals will spend $161 billion. In fiscal year 1999-2000 they will spend $167 billion. Finally, projected spending for 2000-01 will be about $173 billion. Most of the money being spent over 1997 levels is money that could go toward paying down the debt or providing Canadians with real meaningful tax relief.
The Liberal government does not seem to get it. Canadians are being squeezed and they desperately need tax relief. Is it any wonder that come tax time each year more and more of us feel like we are taking one step forward and two back?
Take, for instance, my son in Calgary who has a wife, a little girl and another on the way. As a construction worker at the low end of the wage scale he has had trouble making ends meet even in boom town Calgary which knows something about eliminating debts and deficits and having the lowest taxes in Canada. Why? It is mostly because the federal government still takes so much out of his paycheque that he does not have anything left over.
The deficit battle is won on the backs of people like my son and other Canadian taxpayers who have endured 33 tax increases by the government since 1993. The budget holds hardly any hope for any change.
The most insidious tax of them all is the bracket creep. It was a present from the Tories and one which the Liberals have enjoyed using against Canadians as well. By keeping the Tory bracket creep tax, the Liberals have turned a blind eye to preprogrammed tax increases. Why could they have not done something about that?
Bracket creep, since the Liberals have taken office, has taken an accumulative $13.4 billion in new and higher taxes out of our pockets. That is not acceptable. Indexing for inflation in 1997 would have prevented an automatic $860 million personal income tax increase. This represents an increase totalling $4.3 billion over the next five years. This tax just keeps on taking and taking out of the pockets of Canadians.
Statistics Canada reports that between 1989 and 1995 real after tax family incomes fell by $3,461 from $41,084 to $37,623.
Here is another graphic example of bracket creep. An individual taxpayer earning $30,000 a year in 1993 whose income increases just at the rate of inflation will end up paying $1,581 more in federal income, CPP and EI taxes after he files his return this year.
We have to see that there are social consequences to this budget as well. By not providing tax relief and by failing to pay down the debt, the government jeopardizes the social programs that we have in this country. After adjusting for the government's liquid assets the net public debt will stand at around $583 billion by the end of fiscal 1997-98.
This mountain of accumulated federal debt requires interest payments. Interest payments on the Liberal and Tory mortgage amount to $46 billion for this fiscal year. Canadian taxpayers will pay approximately the same next year to service the debt.
Think in terms of social spending what $46 billion represents. It represents the entire annual budget for the four western provinces. It represents the entire annual budgets of Quebec, P.E.I. and Newfoundland. It represents enough to pay for all Canadian hospitals, physicians and drug costs for an entire year.
We have to do something about the interest payments on this debt. It represents enough to provide every poor child in Canada with a $30,000 a year endowment. Do you see how important this is? As I said at the outset, this budget is both a shame and a sham because it fails Canadians.
Until we pay down the debt, we cannot free up that money which is being used to pay interest on the $583 billion debt. Surely the lost opportunity that these interest payments represent should be reason enough to commit 50% of any surplus to debt reduction.
I urge my colleagues across the way to think of what this means to Canadian taxpayers. Those of us over here are intent on finding out what our constituents feel about this. I asked for people to write to me and let me know how they would spend the surplus, if there ever was a surplus in this country. I would like to read a letter.
Dear Sir:
I would like to give you some input from some taxpayers in your riding on the issue of what to do with any government surplus (if in fact one ever occurs). In short, think deficit reduction. Yes we feel heavily taxed and yes we feel some services have been cut a little too far and our take home pay buys less than it used to, but the $600 billion national debt is a disgrace and a millstone around the necks of all Canadians. It will be even worse for future generations if we don't face reality and deal with this debt.
That is from Bruce and Deborah Maher in my riding.
Public debt charges will eat up 33 cents of every revenue dollar in the current fiscal year or 69 cents out of every personal income tax paid by Canadians.
In 1997 the average Canadian taxpayer will pay about $3,285 a year in taxes just to pay interest on the debt. Large debt burdens also force interest rates higher. This increases the cost of mortgages, automobile loans and household items like washing machines and refrigerators, and carrying credit card balances.
Debt reduction frees up a fiscal dividend for reinvestment in the Canadian economy. This can be done in the form of strengthened social programs, lower taxes or a combination of both.
Cutting the debt in half would put about $1,600 back into the pockets of every average taxpayer in this country. Or the government could even give a mix of tax relief. Anything would be better than what we have.
The government could provide an 8% reduction in personal income taxes, or something it promised a long time ago, the total elimination of the GST. The Liberals could finally honour their 1993 election promise to scrap that hated tax. This could only be done if the Liberals reduced the accumulated federal debt by half. Given the most recent offering by the Prime Minister, I do not think this is likely to occur at any given time.
Sadly this budget does nothing to help ordinary taxpaying Canadians. If anything it impoverishes them further by increasing the tax burden. If that fact is not now readily apparent to taxpayers, when we all sit down and start filing our income tax in the next month or so, then reality will hit us once again.
I cannot support this budget.